With great joy and gratitude to God, the Maryland and USA Northeast Provinces of the Society of Jesus announce that the following Jesuits in formation will be ordained to the priesthood on Saturday, June 10, 2017 at Fordham University Church in New York. The celebrant of the Mass will be the Most Reverand George Murry, SJ, Bishop of Youngstown, Ohio.

The ordination ceremony at 10:30 a.m. can be watched live by clicking here.

Fr. Rodolfo (Rudy) Casals, S.J., 42, was raised in Tarrytown, New York, where he attended Catholic grade school at The Transfiguration School. His family later moved to Wappingers Falls, New York, and finally to Columbia, Tennessee, where he went to Columbia State Community College for a year. He then accepted an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, graduating in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in physics and a minor in Spanish. Fr. Casals began his Navy career in Japan, serving for five years as a surface warfare officer on the USS Dubuque, USS Juneau and USS John S. McCain. He next served as the 22nd Company Officer and instructor at the Naval Academy, earning a master’s degree in leadership education in 2004. While working with midshipmen at the Naval Academy, the dream of becoming a priest, which Fr. Casals had considered when he was younger, returned. He began to realize that God was calling him, which was both exhilarating and terrifying. Fr. Casals started meeting with a Jesuit spiritual director and decided the Jesuits were the right choice because of their mission to go where needs are greatest. After a final year in the Navy as a recruiter in West Des Moines, Iowa, he joined the Jesuits in 2006. As a novice, Fr. Casals volunteered as a chaplain in various hospitals and jails. He went on to study social philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, graduating with a master’s degree in 2011. He next taught physics for two years at Xavier High School in New York City, followed by a year as a chaplain intern at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Most recently, Fr. Casals was missioned to the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree and served as a deacon and chaplain at San Quentin State Prison. After ordination, he will spend the summer serving at St. Mary of the Assumption+Our Lady of Mount Carmel+St. Benedicta Parish on Staten Island, New York, and in the fall, he will serve at St. Thomas More Parish in Atlanta. Fr. Casals will celebrate his first Mass as a priest at St. Mary’s Church in Yonkers, New York. (USA Northeast Province)

Fr. Daniel R. Corrou, S.J., 44, hails from Saratoga Springs, New York. He first met the Jesuits as a student at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. While earning a bachelor’s degree in religious studies, Fr. Corrou was immediately taken with the Jesuits’ combination of intellectual depth and commitment to social justice. Excited by their spirituality, he served for two years at a Jesuit school in Micronesia with Jesuit Volunteers International (JVI) following his 1994 graduation. Returning to the U.S., Fr. Corrou earned a master’s degree in theological studies at Harvard Divinity School and then worked on a trading desk for Fidelity Investments for two years before taking a job in Washington, D.C., with JVI based at Georgetown University. After three years at Georgetown, he assumed a new role in campus ministry at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. After discerning his call to the priesthood through many years of lay service, Fr. Corrou entered the Society of Jesus in 2007. As a novice, he served at Cheverus High School in Portland, Maine, and in Belize for several months. Missioned next to Heythrop College at the University of London, he earned a master’s degree in philosophy and then studied Arabic for one year in Beirut, Lebanon, while working at a Jesuit high school. During his second year in the Middle East, he worked in campus ministry at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. By that point, Syrian refugees had started pouring into Lebanon, and Fr. Corrou spent his last year overseas working with Jesuit Refugee Service as director of their Beirut program. Missioned next to the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, Fr. Corrou earned a Licentiate in Sacred Theology while working as a deacon at St. Mary of the Angels Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and in campus ministry at Tufts University and Boston College. After ordination, Fr. Corrou will spend a year at St. Francis Xavier Church in New York City. His first Mass as a priest will be celebrated at his home parish of St. Clement’s Church in Saratoga Springs. (USA Northeast Province)

Fr. Brett B. McLaughlin, S.J., 35, lived in western Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Rochester, New York, while growing up. He first started thinking about a vocation to the priesthood way back in eighth grade and credits vibrant parishes and priests who were role models as some of his early influencers. After graduating from high school in 2000, Fr. McLaughlin met the Jesuits at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he became active in campus ministry and, because of a class in Christology, began appreciating the Gospels in a whole new way. During the summer between his junior and senior year, he worked at a Jesuit parish in Connecticut, another confirming step as he continued to discern his vocation. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Fr. McLaughlin fulfilled his ROTC commitment and was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force before serving with a small intelligence unit in Southern England. The desire for a vocation was so strong that Fr. McLaughlin asked to be released from his commitment early, and when that was granted in 2006, he joined the Jesuits. As a novice, he worked as a chaplain at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and studied Spanish in Bolivia. Missioned next to Fordham University in the Bronx, New York, Fr. McLaughlin earned a master’s degree in philosophy in 2011 while working with the RCIA program at Fordham and at St. Barnabas Hospital. At Cheverus High School in Portland, Maine, he taught theology while assisting with the Model U.N. Club and the track and cross-country teams. Missioned next to the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California, he earned a Master of Divinity degree as well as a Master of Theology while working as a deacon with the young adult group at St. Ignatius Parish in San Francisco. After ordination, Fr. McLaughlin will be missioned to St. Ignatius Loyola Parish in New York City and hopes to continue his studies in Christology. His first Masses as a priest will take place at the College of the Holy Cross and, a week later, at St. Joseph Church in Portland, Maine. (USA Northeast Province)

Fr. Angelo J. (A.J.) Rizzo, S.J., 36, was born and raised in Philadelphia, where his parents instilled the importance of the Catholic faith in him and his five siblings, two biological and three adopted from Ethiopia. He attended Catholic schools: first his parish’s grade school, St. Albert the Great, and then St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, where he met the Jesuits. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology and philosophy from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania in 2003. After college, Fr. Rizzo returned to St. Joseph’s Prep for a year as a volunteer teacher in their Alumni Service Corps. He then moved to Baltimore and worked at Loyola Blakefield as the assistant to the chaplain and the director of Christian Service for three years, while also earning a master’s degree in pastoral counseling from Loyola University Maryland. At Blakefield, Fr. Rizzo worked with the first Jesuit he ever met when he was a student at St. Joseph’s Prep, Fr. Joe Michini, S.J., who helped him imagine the meaningful relationships he could have as a Jesuit (and who will vest Fr. Rizzo at ordination). He entered the novitiate in 2007 and, as a novice, worked in campus ministry at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He then attended Fordham University in the Bronx, New York, receiving a master’s degree in humanities in 2011. Next Fr. Rizzo spent three years teaching English, religion and Latin and helping coach the mock trial team at Scranton Preparatory School in Pennsylvania, where he lived on the university campus he attended as an undergrad—this time as a Jesuit. In 2014, Fr. Rizzo was missioned to the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree, while also completing coursework for a doctorate in Catholic educational leadership at the University of San Francisco and serving as a deacon at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Oakland. Fr. Rizzo serves on the boards of St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco and St. Elizabeth High School in Oakland. After ordination, he will do dissertation research at Loyola Blakefield and work at St. Ignatius Church in Baltimore. Fr. Rizzo will celebrate his first Mass as a priest at his home parish, St. Albert the Great. (Maryland Province)

May 27, 2020 - Now more than ever, we invoke God to wipe away the darkness of anxiety, allowing us to be guided by the light of Christ and to trust in God’s promise of new life. Over the last few months, our Jesuit provinces have been in a place we don’t often find ourselves, a place that saw our schools closed, parishes empty, and the halls of our retreat centers giving new meaning to the word “silent.”

May 12, 2020 - Susan Baber has been named the Associate Provincial Assistant for Secondary Education for the new USA East Jesuit Province. The new province will come into being on July 31, Susan will assume this new role in August.